The traumatic
The traumatic
The Catcher In the Rye: Final Essay When coping with a devastating loss, people often turn to defense mechanisms to help heal, or conceal their pain. They sometimes ignore the loss, and rather than reacting to it, they project their thoughts for that person onto someone else. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, shares his experiences regarding high school, adolescence, loss, and independence, and uses projection, and regression as mechanisms to heal his pain. Holden uses the defense mechanism projection, while dealing with the loss of his brother Allie.…
Holden Caulfield, a sixteen year old boy living in New York, has been sent to multiple boarding schools and share many similar experiences with J. D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is not like normal teenagers, who are full of life, crave adventure and look forward to new experiences. In contrast, he hates many things, gets depressed, especially around young children, and thinks that everybody; but, mostly adults are phony. On a psychological level, there are many factors in his childhood experience which may have influenced why he acts and thinks such a way. By applying Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, it is easier to understand what motivates Holden’s thoughts and actions, in addition to what Salinger experienced…
J.D. Salinger’s character, Holden Caulfield, in the controversial novel, Catcher in the Rye, struggles with alienation, drugs, and alcohol due to his tragic past. Growing up, Holden lived a pretty normal life, until his brother’s tragic death. His brother, Allie, even though he was younger than Holden, was Holden’s inspiration in life. When Holden discovered that Allie was dead, he slept in the garage, and at one point during that night, Holden managed to break all of the windows in his garage out of complete and utter sorrow. The reader first gets introduced to Allie on pages 38 and 39, where instead of doing Stradlater’s homework, Holden remembers Allie and reflects on his life.…
‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is a 1951 novel written by J.D. Salinger. Set in the 1940’s, it is told from the point of view of a troubled teen, Holden Caulfield. It looks at his emotions and view of the world which show the reader his distressed nature. This novel focuses on the alienation of the main character, madness and mental illness, mortality and lies and Deceit. Despite Holden’s constant interaction with others throughout ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ it still seemed to me that, whether intentional or not, he was bringing his isolation upon himself.…
Throughout our lives, all human beings are forced to navigate from the world of our carefree simplistic childhoods to the more terrifying complex world of adulthood. For most people, this journey is fearsome and full of struggles and obstacles that they must overcome in order to venture to the other side. No matter how difficult this journey is, growing up and becoming an adult is necessary for our life experience. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden Caulfield struggles with the concept of becoming an adult and leaving his childhood behind. Like most people, Holden tries to find an outlet for releasing his fears about growing up.…
Life Gone Downhill For Holden J.D. Salinger is an American who was born in Manhattan, New York. When he was younger he wrote short stories in secondary school, then he started writing for a magazine. His final original was in 1965 and it appeared on the, ‘The New Yorker’. In 1951, his novel, The Catcher In The Rye portrayed many different symbols representing isolation, depression, and comfort.…
Throughout The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger, we see the narrator, Holden Caulfield, sink deeper and deeper into his mental instability. This began when Holden lost his brother, and went on as he started his adventure, fearing he would lose the rest of his family as well. Though this causes him not to be a very reliable source, it does make him more relatable to the book’s teenage audience. In your teenage years, you begin to question not only yourself, but the world around you, which can be seen through Holden's constant hypocrisy, angst, and overall sense of rebellion throughout the novel. The Catcher in the Rye has made itself very well known for a multitude of reasons.…
The Catcher in the Rye begins with the protagonist Holden Caulfield telling the events that happened previously to him being put into a mental hospital for therapy. Although it does not directly state that Holden is in therapy until the end of the novel, if one reads between the lines they can interpret that he is in therapy within the first paragraph of the novel. As Holden begins to tell his story, he refuses to mention his early life, but he does mention that his older brother D. B. visits him mostly every weekend and is a writer. The reader can see that Holden is bitter because he believes that his older brother sold out to Hollywood, abandoning a career in profound literature for renown of the movies. Holden then tells the story of his…
Through the iconic voice of Holden Caulfield, an estranged adolescent, one hears a cry for help emerge from the clouds of depression so effortlessly that nearly everyone, regardless of background, relates. As evident within J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and particularly during chapter 20, Salinger utilizes casual diction, relatable syntax, and a symbolic setting to convey Holden’s great dejection and introspection about death itself. With such a strong rhetorical technique as this, Salinger appeals to the empathy of the audience and creates a nearly universal cult-following for Holden. Although undeservingly idealized, Holden’s struggle to find meaning and happiness in this passage suggests a greater, underlying aspect throughout…
Even though Holden does not save the world, he makes strides towards finding himself and resolving his own exceptional feelings of loss, misanthropy, and apathy. Even though many critics believe the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, is merely a depressed teenager who has failed to fit into the standards and expectations of society, Holden’s saga epitomizes a hero’s journey in that he strives to find himself through hardships and loneliness. Indeed, Holden Caulfield represents a different kind of hero, but is a hero nonetheless. Like in the hero’s journey, Holden Caulfield comes from a…
J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield Psychoanalysis J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, writes about a cynical teenage boy named Holden Caulfield who has a difficult time expressing his emotions to other people. Salinger also had a hard time with his social life, so he composed this novel to express his own difficulties through Holden Caulfield. When analyzing this novel, it is clear to see the similarities between Salinger’s own personal life and the life he creates for Holden. J.D. Salinger uses the character Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye to reflect his own social problems: interacting with other people, relationships, and status expectations.…
An estimated five percent of Americans- more than thirteen million people- have PTSD at any given time (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Fact Sheet). PTSD is a disorder that is triggered by a very stressful traumatic event. People who have PTSD suffer from dramatic mood changes, hallucinations, anxiety, easy agitation, and thoughts of suicide. Holden Caulfield, the main character in The Catcher In the Rye experienced traumatic event when his brother, Allie, died when Holden is only thirteen. Holden suffers from PTSD throughout the novel, as he displays difficulty developing happy thoughts, has frequent thoughts of traumatic events, and difficulty sleeping.…
Julia Rosati Ms. Spano World Lit & Comp Period F 23 May 2016 Holden’s Weekend At some point in life we all face hardships that we struggle to overcome. In J.D. Salinger’s realistic fiction novel The Catcher in the Rye, the sixteen year old narrator, Holden Caulfield, is doubting life. Holden has two brothers, D.B. and Allie.…
Within Catcher in the Rye, without a doubt the theme of alienation is prominent throughout. The Webster dictionary defines alienation as “a withdrawing and separation of a person or persons affection from an object or position of former attachment”. This explanation helps the reader to set the scene for the novel and the isolated presence the main character Holden withholds throughout the course of the story. The negative energy Holden Caufield displays automatically at the beginning of the novel talking about his “lousy childhood”, lets the reader become aware that even as a child, Holden was depressed due to the death of Allie, his brother. This negativity the main character possesses, gives the reader a true insight into the inner pain he feels.…
An inescapable aspect of growing up is that parts of life will change. Though one may not like these changes or want to accept them, they must. These changes, like the death of family members or people around them, can mold a person dramatically, and shape the way that they think of themselves and the world around them. The Catcher in The Rye exemplifies this idea perfectly through the main character’s, Holden’s, experiences as he recounts his life and his actions and experiences before being admitted into a mental hospital. Through the character of Holden Caulfield and the idea of death, J.D. Salinger provides a narrative about how the realities of life and modern society can shape a person as they develop and accept those concepts.…